In recent years, compact memory cards have come to be widely used in various terminal devices such as mobile phones and digital cameras and the like for recording or transmitting audio data and image data shot with digital cameras. In a connector of a device that uses such cards, an eject mechanism is provided that should be able to eject a card that is inserted and connected with a simple operation.
As an eject mechanism, a push-push-type card eject mechanism (that ejects a card by activation of an eject mechanism by re-pressing an inserted card) has been developed with a heart cam mechanism (for example, see Patent Document 1 and Patent Document 2).
In this kind of eject mechanism, normally a slider is provided that guides the card in the insertion/ejection direction, with this slider being biased in the direction of ejecting the card by a coil spring. Here, when the coil spring is not held in a state of being guided in the length direction, it easily buckles. Therefore, the coil spring is normally inserted in a cylindrical portion that is formed in the slider and held therein (for example, refer to FIG. 3 and FIG. 15 of Patent Document 1).
Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent No. 3431608
Patent Document 2: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No.: 2003-21773
On the other hand, particularly in devices where miniaturization is sought such as mobile phones, there is a demand for miniaturization of such a card connector that is mounted therein. Accordingly, miniaturization is also strongly required fort the eject mechanism. However, when the eject mechanism as described above is one that is constituted by holding the coil spring in a cylindrical portion, the eject mechanism require extra space in the width direction and thickness direction by the wall thickness of the cylindrical portion. Accordingly, this has hindered the miniaturization Of the card connector.
Also, when the slider that has this cylindrical portion is molded witty a die, a slider core is required for the cylindrical portion. Accordingly, the die becomes complicated, leading to an increase in the initial cost. Moreover, due to the complication of the die, multi-cavity molding becomes difficult, leading to an increase in the running cost.
For that reason, for example, by fitting the coil spring around a narrow shaft to hold the coil spring, buckling of the coil spring is prevented and it can be favorably held, so that the conventional cylindrical portion becomes unnecessary. Moreover, since the shaft that is provided in place of the cylindrical portion is inserted in the coil spring, the space especially for the shaft is not required. Thereby, that portion of space that was required for the cylindrical portion can be eliminated, enabling the miniaturization of the eject mechanism. However, when passing a coil spring through a shaft, problems arise such as handling being difficult due to the coil spring separating from the shift and time and effort needed for assembly.